Free Republic

The Muslim "debate" on hostage-taking and beheading - Non-Muslims may find it strange that such practices are debated rather than condemned as despicable crimes. A survey of Muslim views over the past weeks shows overwhelming, though not unanimous, condemnation of the Beslan massacre. Muslim commentators assert that Russia, having supported "the Palestinian cause," did not deserve such treatment. Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a Sunni Muslim scholar based in Qatar, insists that a similar attack on Israeli schools would be justified because Israeli schoolchildren, if not killed, could grow up to become soldiers. That position was highlighted in the Arab reaction to...